There are few cars in the world as immediately recognizable as the 1965 Ford Mustang, and its overwhelming popularity has made it the car-of-choice for many professional customizers and restomod specialists. Mike and Jim Ring, better known as Ringbrothers, have made a great career out of customizing muscle cars of all kinds, but their 2015 SEMA entry, a ‘65 Mustang nicknamed Espionage, is one of just a few to be welcoming onto Jay Leno’s Garage.
It is an esteemed honor to be featured on Leno’s Garage, and the 950 horsepower Espionage Mustang is certainly worthy of the recognition.
As Leno notes right off the bat, the whole body of the Espionage Mustang is made from carbon fiber, even though much of the actual body structure was donated by a legit ‘65 Mustang. Ringbrothers not only replaced everything but the rockers with carbon fiber, they also made the undercover Mustang four inches wider, and it’s accented with all sorts of billet accessories to make it pop … as if a completely carbon fiber Mustang wasn’t impressive enough.
But the real meat of this Mustang isn’t its carbon fiber body, which weighs just 180 pounds compared to 700 or 800 for the original steel body, but the 950 horsepower, 427 cubic-inch LS7 engine that sits under the flyweight hood. The gorgeous motor has a Whipple supercharger on top and ever manner of performance modification to put out that kind of tire-shredding power, and only a Ford 9-inch rear end can properly handle it.
While the engine runs quiet, Leno quickly finds out that the power comes on incredibly fast once you dip your toes into the pedal, even in third gear. He also discovers that sometimes show cars like this can still have silly issues, which requires Espionage to go up on a lift and give us a glorious view of the undercarriage. The issue turns out to be a nothing, which leaves us with a 950 horsepower, carbon fiber Mustang burnout.
Jay gets to have all the fun.